Happy New Year
Town Beach, Guichen Bay, Robe, SE South Australia
Happy New Year.
I trust that 2011 will bring you many blessings and enjoyable times.
I have enjoyed sharing with my many readers some of my adventures as I have travelled the wonderful country of Australia. My articles here have been a little spasmodic over the last three years as I’ve struggled with the demands of my Master of Arts degree and with some health issues. Now that’s behind me, I hope to be able to share with you many more travels in the coming years.
New adventure
A few years ago my daughter inspired me to accompany her on a trek through the Himalayas. You can read about my adventures in my archives called Travels in Nepal. Later this year she will be teaching overseas for a semester. My wife and I are planning to visit her and so you can look forward to many photos and articles about our travels in Africa. Stay tuned.
In the meantime come back here often as I plan to update this site at least three times a week.
Happy New Year.
My daughter taking a photo of me, Sydney Fish Markets
Australian travel advice
Travel around the world has become hazardous in recent years.
I thought about that sentence for a few minutes. I guess travel anywhere has been hazardous in many different eras, and nothing has really changed, except perhaps the types and nature of the threats. In 2005-06 when I travelled to Thailand I thought very little about any hazards and I had a great time. I would think twice about going there at the moment with their political problems. (Read about my experiences here.)
from Thailand I went to Nepal for a month. This was a life changing experience, but the Maoists were very active at the time. On one occasion I was confined to my hotel for 24 hours because of bombings a short distance away from my hotel in Kathmandu. It was risky but I survived. Every tourist needs to sum up the relevant risk factors relating to their travel destination and make a call. In reality, there is probably more risk in driving to my local supermarket for shopping than the risks involved in travel to most overseas countries. Far more people die in car accidents than plane crashes, for example.
I recently had my attention drawn to an Australian site which gives Australians advice when planning an overseas holiday. Aussie Travel Advice is an independent travel site especially set up to help Australians. Go and have a look here.
Ama Dablam, Nepal, 2006
Happy Birthday to my blog
Ama Dablam, Nepal
This blog about my travels is now four years old.
I started this blog exactly four years ago in the dining room of my son in Sydney. He had just set up the domain name and busily went about teaching me how to blog. He was a good teacher for I was soon off and away with blog entries. And I haven’t let up in the intervening years. I try to post every day but during the last two years I have also been trying to complete my Master of Arts in Creative Writing which has impacted on how frequently I have been able to write articles here. I’m also in the last stages of completing the writing of a novel for children as part of those studies. It has all taken a lot of my time.
During the life of this blog I have written about many places, including a visit to Thailand and trekking in Nepal. By far the majority of the nearly 600 articles are as a result of travelling here in Australia, including New South Wales, Victoria, Australian Capital Territory and my home state of South Australia of course.
I’d like to thank all my many regular readers, those who have occasionally dipped into various pages and especially those who have taken the trouble to leave comments. I value you all – you people make this blog a worthwhile endeavour.
A special thanks to my son Sim’ who looks after the background administration of this and my other blogs, keeping them ticking over nicely.
Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens
Tintinara in the SE of South Australia
Playground, Tintinara, SE South Australia
I took this photo of the playground in the picnic area in the main street on a recent visit to Tintinara because of the piece of equipment in the foreground. It’s in the shape of a kangaroo, though I can’t recall if you get “red” kangaroos in the Tintinara region. (I just checked my field guide to Australian mammals – Red Kangaroos are found much further north.)
Old steam train water bowser, Tintinara
Next to the playground is this old water bowser (or water tower), a relic of a by-gone era when the steam trains would stop here to replenish their water tankers. In the background you can see the railway line which is the main line between Adelaide and Melbourne. The Overlander passenger train came through as I had my morning cuppa. It rarely stops in Tintinara these days, whereas in a the steam age there would have been several passenger services daily. Now the line is used mainly for heavy interstate freight traffic, mixed with one daily express passenger train daily.
Galah at Tintinara, SE South Australia
While I was in Tintinara I managed to get a few good photos of some of the local bird life. More photos can be seen here and here.
Metro Light Rail, Sydney
Metro Light Rail, Sydney
On one of our excursions into the CBD of Sydney during our recent holidays we took the Metro Light Rail to the Sydney Fish Markets. Until we took this tram I was not aware that Sydney had a light rail system. Metro Transport runs the Metro Light Rail and they also run the Sydney Monorail which intersects with the light rail and then loops through parts of the CBD.
We didn’t take the monorail on this trip; you have to leave some fun for our next holiday in Sydney. We took the train from Artarmon, which is a five minute walk from our son’s home. We alighted at Central Station and then caught the light rail to the Sydney Fish Markets. These trams are quiet, quick, clean and arrive every few minutes throughout the day. On some sections the trams run for 24 hours a day every day of the year. My only criticism is that they are quite expensive to the length of the ride. Still, it saved a lot of walking.
The track goes from Central Railway Station and terminates at Lilyfield, going through Haymarket, Darling Harbour, Pyrmont Bay and Glebe.
Metro Light Rail, Sydney